Don’t call me lucky. You make your own luck

You make your own luck

I write this with a bus window view that spans the rock and snow covered peaks of the Andes. Aconcagua towers high above. I’ve been traveling for 9 months straight on a passport that bursts with scribbles and coloured stamps from lands spanning Alaska to Chile.

I’ve fallen in love, have amazing brands wanting to work with me, and have felt worldwide support that makes my heart sing. But this isn’t luck. It’s the fruits of hard work, early mornings, missed friends and family, not seeing my nieces grow up, and many, many sleepless nights… Luck my friends, has nothing to do with it.

Don’t say those words…

It’s not like I won the lottery or have a trust fund. If that were the case, then maybe luck would have something to do with it. Picking a lucky ticket or being born into money has everything to do with chance. Hard work, shifting priorities and making sacrifices, does not.

‘I wish I could do what you do’ is a phrase that bothers me. Every time I hear it I want to grab the person and shake their shoulders until their ears flap, shouting ‘but you can woman, you’re not a tree!!’ But rather then be committed to the looney-bin, I abstain and attempt to explain my view on luck.

Shift your priorities

I honestly believe you make your own luck. We all have 24 hours in a day. We are all able to earn minimum wage. We are all eligible for foreign work visas and passports. At the end of the day, we are all spending our days as a result of a choice, made previously. If you don’t like how you’re spending your day, make a choice to do something different. Shift your priorities.

For me, priorities are the key word. Leaving my job in Sydney to pursue new skills, push out of my comfort zone, and focus on creating inspiring content for Still Stoked was my priority this last year. Saving money, having kids, working towards getting a promotion, or a new job or car, was not. There were times when I thought ‘what the f**k am I doing here?’. I cried so many times during my heli-guide training that it was almost laughable. But wasn’t that my priority and the choice I had made? I wanted to be pushed past my comfort zone. It was that choice that led me to slide on my arse at 12,000ft, screaming at the left ski of my splitboard as my edge failed and I lost the 100ft of vertical I just spent the last 30 minutes climbing.

Was I lucky in those situations? Are you lucky you got a promotion at work, or saved up a down payment to buy a house? No. You worked hard for it. You made it happened. You made your own luck because those achievements were your priority at the time. Well done you!

Always bet on yourself

So next time someone tells you that you’re so lucky to be doing what you are doing: to have your job, to have your family, to get to travel, to live in a house with a view… punch them in the face! No only joking… ask them what choices they made that made them so unlucky? They will realise how little luck has to do with it. It’s all about priorities and mine right now are to step out of my comfort zone by doing new things in new places. A good friend Ethan Balogh told me, “Always bet on yourself. If in doubt, double-down”. You don’t need luck to live the life of your dreams. You need to bet on yourself and work to make it happen.

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